ID cards are go

Ploughing on

Forcing through a divisive plan is judged less damaging than dropping it

TOOTHBRUSH, soap, biometric fingerprints: shopping lists at pharmacies will soon be more exotic, now that the government has announced plans to let chemists, post offices and assorted other high-street shops process applications for its controversial new identity cards. On May 6th Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, announced that from this autumn the scheme, which until now has applied only to certain non-European folk, would be tried out in Manchester. Mancunians will be able to get an ID card for a fee of £30 ($45), plus another £30 or so to have their mugshots and fingerprints taken. It will allow them to travel passport-free in Europe and to prove their identity when buying a beer or a mortgage, and will also, the government says, help protect society from illegal immigrants, terrorists and fraudsters.

Before Ms Smith's announcement, many had thought the identity scheme was dead. Its alleged benefits always seemed modest for the £5.3 billion that the Home Office estimates it will cost over the next decade; and, as Britain's public finances plunged into the red, it was an obvious candidate for the chop. David Blunkett, a former Labour home secretary, said last month that new passports would be just as good. Alistair Darling, the chancellor, seemed to hint as much a few days later.

Now, perhaps keen to avoid another of the screeching u-turns that have been provoking mutiny within the Labour Party, the government is pressing ahead. Downing Street may reckon the cards will win votes: public support for them is strong-ish, though sliding (see chart). Ministers say little would be saved by scrapping the cards, since the next generation of passports, which will use the same fingerprint technology, accounts for two-thirds of the scheme's budget.

Both arguments are suspect. ID cards' popularity depends on how pollsters phrase their questions. Only about half the public know that there will be a charge. When polls by no2id, a pressure group, mentioned the cost, net support fell to zero. Hostility from particular groups could make things sticky: a pilots' union has already said it will challenge a forthcoming requirement that airmen carry them. And concern about civil liberties may become more than a hobby, especially given separate plans, announced on May 7th, to store for up to 12 years the DNA of anyone over ten who is arrested, even if not charged.

The costings are misleading too, in a way that flatters the scheme. The headline budget omits the scanners that hospitals, benefit agencies and others would need to read the chips inside the cards. If potential users decide to spend their money elsewhere, the cards may be checked only visually, thus rendering them no more secure than any old bit of plastic. At the moment, employers cannot buy the scanners even if they want to; official advice suggests flicking the cards to test their authenticity, because they have a “distinctive sound”.

As for the argument that almost as much would need to be spent on new passports anyway, Edgar Whitley of the London School of Economics points out that current ones already contain enough biometric data to satisfy any country in the world, including America. The Home Office says it is better to be at the leading edge in such matters. But the suspicion remains that passports are being souped up in order to keep the fingerprint technology out of the contentious ID-card budget.